Category Archives: Music

I’ve been very busy recently as I’ve got two gigs coming up. The first one is here in Bristol and it’s going to be great fun. I’ll be playing a few tunes with Paddy and Jimi then we have a fantastic flamenco set from Flamenco Loco.

Our upcoming gig at Khan!

Then at the end of May we’ve been invited to play at the Bath Fringe Festival. We’re going to do a similar format with a set from me then a flamenco set from Ganesha & Co at the Old Theatre Royal.

We’ve also been recording an old song which I’ve never worked on before.

Peter and I have been on a great drumming weekend and have a long weekend coming up of sabar playing over the bank holiday weekend.

This week we laid my dear Aunt Joan to rest – she was 94 years old and had been healthy most of her life. Her time had come but I feel for her husband who is still alive – they would have been married for 70 years this April!!!

However, it was lovely on Monday to go back to my cousin’s after the ceremony and see the family for a change as we hardly ever meet up. Both my kids came to support which was great.

I also have very positive news musicwise as me and my little band have been offered a great slot at the Bath Fringe Festival on May 28th at the Old Theatre Royal in Bath. We’re going to do a set of my music followed by a set of flamenco music by my persussionist and his band Ganesha and Co. They are brilliant and I’m really looking forward to the whole thing. It will mean a lot of practicing and promotion but our first really proper gig as a band.

This coming week we’re off boating to move a barge from Ramsgate back to London which will be brilliant as long as the weather’s ok as it can be very choppy in a barge navigating round by Margate etc.

Well I can’t say I’ve got anything spectacular to say but I’m determined to get back into blogging again. It helps me remember my own life when I look back on it ha ha! I probably won’t write much about my private life as I don’t like to break confidences about my family and friends.

This evening I have a practice with my little band comprising Paddy on the keys and Jimi on percussion – both excellent musicians in their own right. We have the possibility of putting on a gig soon at a lovely little venue in Bristol called Khan plus a chance to bid to play at the Bath Fringe in May/June. Plus, on my daughter’s suggestion, I’ve started to get back on the open mic circuit to meet other musicians for both inspiration and also to find people to put on at our Electrosonica music nights. I’ll probably re-create a lyrics page here too and some other pages with paintings and photos.

I think the old blog did more for me than I realised, as the more I reflected on my creative life, the more I felt I had to live up to it myself – if that makes any sense. So, if I tell you I’m determined to do some more painting as well – it also reminds me to get on with and not just think about it. While I was in London my son gave me the most lovely, dinky watercolour set of paints that you can carry around in your bag and sketch or paint something whenever the mood takes you and it inspired me to do a couple of quick pictures – one of them is a small painting of my son with his clown red nose on and I really enjoyed doing it as it didn’t involve a pencil at all – just brush strokes which was a first for me! This in turn inspired me to get back to work on a portrait of a friend of Peter’s that I haven’t touched in months.

I’ve also got myself a new camera – a Canon SX40HS, second hand but really brilliant and I absolutely love taking photographs and hope to put the best ones here. Anyway – there’s a lot going on at the moment and rather than just a sentence on Facebook I’m going to blog – mostly for myself but if you enjoy reading it too, well that’s great! Do let me know if you’re blogging somewhere too and I’ll come and read your posts. I miss the old Modblog days but actually, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t get that community feeling going again with a bit of effort on all our parts. Many of us are still online friends and some of us have also met in the “real” world too – so that’s my take on it anyway.

I had a really great evening to launch my new album At The Healing Tree. I had Paddy Uglow and Andrea Hernandez doing support sets then performed two sets of songs with the band I put together specially.

It was really good to play the tracks with the full backing of a band to do them more justice than when it’s just me and my guitar! Everyone did brilliantly and it felt like a turning point. I sold a few albums and also it’s now available as a hard copy on my website Chandra Moon and also for download on CDbaby, iTunes and Amazon.

Here’s a photo from the evening.

Next stage is to make some more videos and do some more live gigs and hopefully write some new songs!

I am very happy to announce I have finally finished my second album At The Healing Tree and I am having a launch gig in Bristol on October 25th at The Halo Bar, Gloucester Road, 8pm – it would be wonderful if you could come.

The album features some wonderful musicians and I’m lining up a great band for the launch.

If you can’t make the launch or want to get your copy now, you can purchase the album at my website

The album only costs £7.50 and I’m offering a very special deal of including my first album Full Circle for an extra £2.50 – so only £10 for two beautifully produced albums.

Of course, you can buy them separately too.

So, hope to see you at the launch or do visit my website to get your copy (or contact me direct if you’d rather pay by cheque). Thanks so much for all your support which has inspired me to get this far!

On other things, my knee is still bad but slowly improving. I had an MRI scan which shows extensive tearing to my medial collatoral ligament so am now doing painful rehab exercises. The physio has said it could be another two m0nths before I can go back to tennis! What a drag.

At home we have extensive work going on converting two small bedrooms into one lovely big room with a shower room in the corner. Will be brilliant when finished but noisy and dusty in the meantime.

Going back to Peter’s amazing story of finding his family in Russia and Ukraine, we got the sad news yesterday that his Uncle Peter died a couple of days ago, so he didn’t quite make 90. We are so pleased though that he had the chance to meet Peter and his brother before he died – both for them and him this was an amazing experience. Sad that the rest of the family didn’t meet him but at least we’re all in touch now with younger members of the family too.

Well after more than six weeks I’m still really quite disabled by my torn ligaments in my knee and it’s still very painful. However, I can still play music and do things round the house albeit much slower than normal!

Tomorrow we have builders arriving to start work on taking down a stud wall between two small rooms in our house and making it into one lovely big room with a shower room. Plus knocking a new back door out through the utility room to save clumping mud and muck through the house. It will be noisy, dirty and chaotic for a couple of weeks but hopefully will be worth it all in the end!

I’m practicing for our gig on February 18th at Halo Bar and also I’m being interviewed for BCFM (Bristol Community Radio) next Monday. Work in the studio is interesting now, having reached the mixing and mastering part of the album so still hoping for a release in March/April.

Anyway, that’s my news for now – if you’re in Bristol come and see us play on Feb 18th!

Had a really good family Christmas this year (I should say last year now shouldn’t I?). The only down side was that I managed to fall down the stairs on December the 19th and really sprain my right knee.

It was all due to a mad magpie that is intent on killing itself throwing itself repeatedly at my kitchen window. I presume he sees his reflection and thinks he’s his own rival then keeps coming back to check he’s frightened himself off! I was rushing around like you do at Christmas time – I’d stripped beds ready to re-make for people coming to stay and chucked the washing down the stairs rather than take it down. Suddenly I heard that pesky magpie banging the downstairs window – I rushed down to shoo him off, forgot the washing, caught my foot in the sheets and there you have it – a horrible accident. My knee twisted right under me and I felt something inside go ‘twang’ and here I am nearly 3 weeks on hobbling around like an old lady. It is improving now thankfully with the help of a good chiropracter.

Apart from that, what a lovely time we had. My daughter and her little girl came to stay for the best part of a week, my son joined us for a few days then P’s family and children came for the weekend after Christmas. We had a great time playing with the children with a fantastic toy called Geomag – we built the Eifel tower together and ate lovely food!

Christmas Lunch At Home

Building The Eifel Tower!

We had a quiet new year with neighbours over the road and generally relaxed.

This year (can’t believe it’s 2013 already) I’ll release and launch my second album which is nearly finished, we’re planning a trip to Russia and Ukraine in July to visit P’s newly found family, legalise our marriage on May 1st at the registry office (in private as we’ve already done our wonderful handfasting ceremony), various drumming things planned as usual and hopefully a first trip to Oz for P in the autumn or spring next year.

I need to overcome my musical lethargy – I haven’t written a new song in ages but it seems to be something that can’t be forced and at least I’m practicing and recording the old songs and getting tracks recorded that weren’t on the first album!